Ports in a Storm
by ninamonkey
Summary: Love and work aren't necessarily synonymous. McCoy/Uhura, written for an st respect Ship Wars prompt.


He twisted the glass between his fingers and stared blankly at its empty contents. Half of him wanted another quick fix, but the dwindling sober half reminded him he wasn't entitled to act like a class-A prick (not on a floating starship, where people depended on him) and he wasn't entitled to enact a drunken rampage down the corridors while cursing his best friend's name. He knew one more drink would draw his mood into that dark place and he had just enough sense in his more-than-tipsy, less-than-drunk state that he knew better. He cast a bleary eye around his office, mad at the world. Mad that his own quarters awarded him a hairbreadths less solace than his work environment. Which was why he was in his office, and not his room. He would've probably been out cold had he been in his room; at least in his office he was a bit more cautious, by a minuscule margin.

Sighing, Leonard set down his glass with an audible click and shoved the bourbon bottle back in the left drawer (his "medicinal bourbon", Jim called it). He rarely if ever drank alone anymore, but the world was too much with him these days. _Nyota _was too much with him. He missed her like hell...and he realized, just today, just in the past hour, how much he...well, he'd admit it in his mind: _Loved _her.

God.

It felt like his residency days all over again, when he and Joss had something going and she was off doing her thing, but he swore on a stack of medical journals post-divorce that he'd never, ever get that taken with a girl again. Still Ny snuck up on him, snuck past his sensors. She got under his skin in all the right places and before he knew to leave well enough alone, his heart had other ideas. So here he was, roaming around like a moonsick calf, pining for the girl who's off doing her thing while he did his.

God. _Dammit_. If he found Cupid he'd beat the diapered bastard to death with his own arrow.

Len closed his eyes, tipped back his chair, and slung his feet over the desk. An old, old ancient Earth melody - one he used to sing in his heavier drinking days - weaved through his brain like a siren's call and he hummed it under his breath. His warbling baritone pinged off the walls in a horridly flat echo, but he didn't care. He wasn't technically on duty, the majority of the crew were either on Starbase 11 or asleep, and he had no patients to see. He was totally, utterly, completely alone and willing to wallow deep, like a pig in shit. He sighed again and sang a little louder, hating himself for his juvenile behavior in response to Ny's absence, but finding little solace or comfort in anything but.

He was singing the longest, most monotonous and obnoxious (in his mind, anyway) part of the song, when another voice, somewhere back beyond his walls, softly harmonized with him.

The song died on his lips and for a moment he couldn't tell if it was the bourbon or his depression making him hallucinate, because she was still at her assignment, far as he knew. Supposed to be there for another God knew how many long months.

But hallucinations didn't get stronger and they certainly didn't knock. "Come in," he murmured, but he had to say it twice due to the barely heard, bourbon-fueled growl sticking in his throat.

His brows narrowed slightly as the body slipped with ease into his office, stripping bare all remaining barriers.

She was no hallucination. Fate could not be so cruel.

"Hey."

"Hey," he whispered. He blinked twice as Nyota came over to him, floating like a dream (and he doubted his sanity twice, wondering if he could be hallucinating still) and planted herself in his lap. She giggled softly. "Now I know why you never tried out for the campus choir."

"That bad, huh?"

She laughed again, and it sounded like wind chimes. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, Len."

She ran soft fingers through his hair and he shut his eyes, willing not to awaken if it was simply a drunken dream. She seemed to instinctively know his thoughts, though, and she brought his chin 'round to face her. "It's temporary, Len, so stop moping."

"I love you, Ny."

Her smile faded slightly. "That's the bourbon talking."

"No, it's not." He wasn't going to waste time arguing with her. "Aren't you still on assignment?"

Nyota shrugged and he read the truth in her eyes before she said it. "Yes, but we get time off, same as everyone else." She snorted and looked away. "Two weeks. We were together two weeks before this, that's it. Crazy. I shouldn't feel..."

Her eyes floated back to his and he wanted to prove to himself she was real, wanted to drown in every millimeter of her gaze. He was sure they both felt it, but only he felt brave enough to voice it. "Shouldn't feel what, Ny? Alive?" His lip quirked. "Crazy's right on the money, though. Neither one of us were lookin' for it, but it happened anyway."

She swallowed. "Are you happy?"

He scratched the back of his neck and turned away. "I'd be a fool to say otherwise. I'm sick in love, and if that ain't crazy I don't know what is."

"Me too." He didn't look up, because he'd lose it if he did. Dammit, why were her orders so damn long? A week, two weeks, maybe a month, he could take that. Not this...indeterminate shit. Not when they _just _got fucking started.

"Len, I missed you too damn much, and everybody knew it." His eyes lowered and she kissed his small pout. "Starbase 11 was a planned rendezvous and Kirk had our ship's timetables coincide."

And that took him for a bigger loop than he expected. "Jim did _what_?"

Nyota kissed him softly. "We have two weeks before I have to leave again, but I don't want to waste it all talking about Jim, do you?"

"No."

"Then let's make the most of the time we _do _have." Leonard allowed her to lead him out of his office mausoleum. Time was time, and he knew he'd miss her again; maybe not as badly as he had been missing her, and the ache could yet consume him. But he felt his confidence returning. He could try weathering this storm as long as she could, and at least they'd anchor each other.


End file.
